How I Made Patrick Kelly’s One-Seam Coat

You can definitely make a zero-waste version, too!

Patrick Kelly’s one-seam coat design executed in Fibershed’s Climate Beneficial Collaborative Cloth.

From the first time I laid eyes on Fibershed’s Climate Beneficial Collaborative Cloth last year, I fell in love. 

Made of 42% Lani’s Lana California Climate Beneficial Rambouillet Wool from Bare Ranch Wool, CA and 58% Organic Texas Cotton, the two-sided cloth is so warm, cozy, and full of potential. I had every intention to incorporate it into a final garment prototype for my Fibershed’s Design Challenge showcase last month. 

However, that plan evaporated after closer interactions with the fabric. This fabric is too thick to fit into my plans of creating square-based garments.

Freeing myself from the commitment to incorporate this collaborative cloth into my design showcase, I embarked into a short research of zero-waste, drapey garment patterns on Pinterest. It led me to discover Patrick Kelly’s one-seam coat pattern.

What a genius design; the fabric width (cross grain) would dictate the coat’s length, whereas the fabric length (straight grain) would determine the coat’s width. And it all can be finished with one seam. 

Along with this pattern discovery, I also saw Rhonda's Creative Life blog post. She created an excellent Patrick Kelly’s one-seam coat with a linen silk blend, and her blog post was really helpful in determining measurements and overall expectations.

Combining her post with the doll costume version by Patrick Kelly’s personal friend, I came out 100% convinced that the Climate Beneficial Collaborative Cloth has met the garment it needs to become.

Patrick Kelly is the very first American ever to join the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter, the prestigious French fashion governing body. His seemingly meteoric rise and international acclaim in the  fashion industry came after years of hard work. From enduring systemic racism in Vicksburg, Missouri, to having his Parsons scholarship rescinded in New York because he’s a person of color, he persevered through his life challenges through talents, grits, and perseverance. 

The de Young Museum in San Francisco had a fashion exhibition and short documentary of Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love in 2021. From that documentary, I found out that he used to sell one-seam coats on the streets to make ends meet during his first few years in Paris. He also reclaimed racist iconographies through his work, as his way to explore systemic racism through the lens of joy and love.

Check out Faces and Places in Fashion: Patrick Kelly (Archives On Demand) and this Vice article to learn more about this genius, joyous, and exuberant designer who’s gone too soon. What a gift he was, and still is, to American excellence in fashion design.

Learning about Patrick Kelly makes me appreciate more about the thoughts behind this one-seam coat. From de Young Museum’s documentary, you can see two one-seam coats presented at the 2:24 mark.

Two of Patrick Kelly’s one-seam coats (one in black, the other in gray) are shown on two mannequins that faced each other, underneath his portrait.

Also in the documentary, Laura L. Camerlengo, the then Associate Curator (now Curator-in-Charge) of Costume and Textile arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco mentioned how Patrick Kelly was a brilliant designer with bright personality, however not equipped with the best sewing skills, “...to the point where he would throw a sewing machine out of the window,” she said. 

No wonder he’s able to come up with this unorthodox approach to design! What a refreshing and timeless way to create a draping cocoon coat with lovely influences of Cristobal Balenciaga and Issey Miyake.

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I started making the one-seam coat the day before the Fibershed Design Challenge Final Showcase reception. The next morning, I managed to connect the seams but I ran out of time to finish it.

I brought it to the reception only with the intention of showing it to fellow designers and putting it away. However, I ended up wearing it for the whole time shortly after arriving. It was cold, and the half-finished coat was so cozy and warm. 

With fellow Fibershed Design Challenge designers Alix Vasquez of Herderin, Flore Costumé, Janice Paredes (mostly obscured behind me), Carol Miltimore of Seek Collective, and Lisa Takata. Photo by Paige Green.

Two days after the reception, I was able to finish the coat. It’s glorious, I love it so much, and I will tell you how I made my version of Patrick Kelly’s one-seam coat.

Here’s the list of things I used to make Patrick Kelly’s one-seam coat:

1. Main Fabric: Climate Beneficial Collaborative Cloth, made of 42% Lani’s Lana California Climate Beneficial Rambouillet Wool from Bare Ranch Wool, CA and 58% Organic Texas Cotton

2. Secondary fabric for bias binding: remnants of linen/cotton blend lawn woven fabric

3. Thread: Sally Fox’s sewing thread (Tex 29) 

4. Pattern: Patrick Kelly’s Coat Pattern from Philadelphia Museum of Art 

If you are an experienced sewist, having that four pieces of information is enough to get you going. For the rest of this article, I will share more details from my make - specific measurements, what to do to make this Patrick Kelly pattern zero waste, finishing techniques, and photos of the finished coat.

Shall we get to it?